


On the Run with You

by Ember_Keelty



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Friendmance, M/M, Other, POV Second Person, Red Hawke, ambiguous class Hawke, ambiguous gender Hawke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-22
Updated: 2018-09-22
Packaged: 2019-06-17 08:49:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15457650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ember_Keelty/pseuds/Ember_Keelty
Summary: Hawke and Anders share a moment while taking shelter from the rain.





	On the Run with You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [marmett (MisterWiggums)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MisterWiggums/gifts).



You've just about forgotten what rain is like in Ferelden. In Kirkwall, the clouds would break around the mountains into swirling patches that unloaded themselves in quick, gutter-flooding bursts, or else settled over the city as a fog that made strolling across Lowtown feel like wading through a bowl of mystery meat stew. In either case, inclement weather rarely did much to bring down the sweltering heat of the Marches — as often as not, the humidity just made it hotter.

Amaranthine isn't that far south of Kirkwall, but you and Anders have been trudging through its countryside for less than a day before the difference in climate makes itself known. It's drizzling when you set out from the city, and it continues drizzling for hours as you travel southwest, cutting across the Feravel Plains and avoiding the main road. At some point, the drizzling crosses the line into being just regular rain. At some point after that, the rain crosses the line into being a heavy shower.  Even with a dome of force magic keeping the water from falling directly onto your heads, you still get drenched when you step too heavily into a puddle and splash yourselves, or when the wind changes and brings the rain in from an unexpected angle. Bit by bit, it seeps in past your oilskin coats to soak the woolens underneath, until they become a source of cold rather than a barrier from it. It happens gradually, and a part of you keeps expecting that sooner or later a dry patch will come along to let you warm up, so you take longer than you probably should to realize that you really ought to find shelter.

Once you do arrive at that realization, it's only a few hours before sunset, when you'll need to make camp anyway. You're tempted to just tough out the cold until then. You're shivering a bit, and your nose has been running enough that at this point you've given up on your waterlogged handkerchiefs in favor of letting the rain itself wash the snot off your face, but are you really going to be defeated by the weather, of all things? You are far too stubborn for that.

Ahead of you, Anders slips. You try to catch him, but the cold must be affecting your reflexes because you don't make it, and he lands facedown in the rain-churned mud.

After you help him up, he says, "Thank you, Hawke," and then goes right on marching forward as though he isn't dripping wet and covered in filth.

"We should stop for the night," you say. "I think there are some caves in that stony hill over there."

"I can still keep going," he says.

"No, you can't," you tell him. Before he can argue, you add, "And neither can I, for that matter. The cold is starting to slow me down. I need to take shelter and get out of these clothes before I catch something even you can't neatly magic away."

Anders stops and sighs. "You have a point there. I'm sorry, I should have thought of that. I haven't come down with any colds since Justice, and that was... Maker, that was more than six years ago now, wasn't it? And I'm so used to just pushing through anyhow, and..." He smiles at you, that same adoring smile he's been hitting you with ever since you agreed to run away with him. It shines through the muck just as easily as it shines through all the sorrow and anxiety he's always shrouded in. "And that's no excuse, is it? It was bold enough to ask you to take this path with me in the first place. I have no place asking you to trod it more recklessly than necessary."

"Apologizing won't get us out of the rain," you tell him, smiling back. You take his hand so that if he slips again you won't have to jump to catch him, and the two of you head for the hill you pointed out.

There do turn out to be some caves in the hill, and you soon find one that's roomy enough for you both to either sit or lie down in and has a floor that slants toward the entrance so that it's unlikely to flood. You unshoulder your packs, peel off your wet clothes, and stash both at the back of the cave, where Anders does what he can to dry them with elemental magic. Happily, he manages not to set anything on fire in the process. Once he's done and you have access to the packs, you grab the cookware and set it out to catch the rain. In just a matter of minutes, you've gathered enough for your purposes, and pull Anders to the entrance to rinse the muck from his skin.

"What are you—" he starts to ask at just the wrong moment, and some of the water you're splashing at his face gets in his mouth.

"Sorry," you say as he sputters. "I should have warned you to keep your mouth closed."

Even though he is now duly warned, he starts laughing when you go back to cleaning him. You refuse to take responsibility for the further sputtering that results in. You also refuse to repeat the warning; it's nice to hear him sounding so cheerful.

"I see," he says once you've finished. "Here I thought you'd gotten it into your head to go streaking across the turnip fields of some hapless Amaranthine farmer, but no: you just wanted to pretty me up a bit."

Even though he's already about as clean as he's going to get, you splash him again. "That's right," you tell him. "I don't intend to let anyone but me see you like this."

Anders laughs again. You could get used to that.

You settle in together, lying back and snuggling against each other, your head tucked beneath his chin and your wind-battered nose pressed safely into the hollow of his throat. Just three years ago, even the thought of you and Anders all casually naked like this would have gotten you flushed and flustered to the point of squirming, but now it's perfectly natural. He feels more like home than Ferelden does.

Anders is as bony as ever; you have to lie on top of one of his arms to fit against him, and it's only slightly softer than the stone. Since you're lying on stone anyway, though, you don't have much reason to complain about that. You're exhausted enough to sleep through all sorts of discomfort, and the familiarity of your lover's body in the midst of a land grown strange to you is comfort enough. The warming spell he casts over the both of you and the muscle-soothing aura of healing magic that surrounds him when he relaxes are just a bonus.

"Well, you seem to be doing all right with the cave," you say against his chest. "That's good. The claustrophobia isn't bothering you at all?"

"No, this isn't so bad," Anders agrees. "I can see out the entrance, hear the rain, smell the fresh... mud. Nothing at all like the dungeons _or_ the Deep Roads."

"You really are in a good mood. Joking around _and_ talking openly about the past — in that order, too." You remember he's mentioned before that for a spirit, acting out one's purpose is a high like no other. If that's what this is, you hope it means he's gotten past feeling like justice demands he be punished for doing what justice demanded of him in the first place. "I like seeing you happy," you remind him.

Anders presses a long kiss to the top of your head, burying his face in your hair. When he comes up for air, he tells you,  "We were in a cave when I realized that I love you."

"Do you mean your clinic in Darktown?" You suppose that could be considered a cave of sorts, but you've never heard him refer to it that way before.

"No, I mean up on the coast, where the Starkhaven apostates were taking shelter. Haven't I told you this before?"

"No, I'm sure I would have remembered if you had."

"That's strange. I must have just thought of it so many times that I got confused. I used to imagine telling you all about it, back when I was still bottling everything up. But then when I finally gave in, you were quite adamant about not being interested in the talking part."

"You'd been talking yourself in circles for three years," you remind him. "I wasn't about to let you babble on until you scared yourself away from me again." His laugh is more sheepish this time. You string a few light kisses around his neck to reassure him, then say, "Tell me about it now. How did you fall in love with me?"

"It was relief enough when you wanted to protect the Starkhaven mages from being slaughtered out of hand, but when you promised them you would help set them free even at the cost of bloodshed, when I told you that the life of one Templar was worth their freedom and you _agreed_ with me... That was the moment I knew that what I had been feeling for you was no mere infatuation, and that ignoring it would not save me."

"Always so dramatic," you chide him affectionately. "What else was I supposed to do? It was a bit late to act all precious about violence, after I'd killed the blood mage who attacked us right in front of his lover."

"He was the worst sort of mage, and Ser Thrask was the best sort of Templar. Even if it had been the other way around, many people would have made the hypocritical choice and never thought twice about it. That impression I had of you when we first met, that there was something deeply honest about you — I was right. Perhaps Justice sensed it. He's always been the same way."

"Back then, I was surprised you would call a mercenary 'honest,'" you admit. "But after I got a better look at what the rest of Kirkwall was like, I started to see your point."

"Not just Kirkwall, love. You'd be a rarity anywhere. But now that you're bringing up what you thought about those early meetings... I'm curious: when did you fall in love with me?"

"The moment I saw you," you answer without hesitation.

"Aw, that's no fair!" Though you can't see Anders' face, you know with absolute certainty that he is pouting. "I told you mine!"

"I'm serious," you insist. "I'm not saying it was love at first sight in the storybook sense. By the time I walked into your clinic, I already knew who you were. When Lirene told me about you, she made you sound too good to be real. I'd already known I was looking for a Grey Warden, one of those warriors who fight Darkspawn like it's no different from exterminating particularly aggressive rats, but now you were running a charity for Fereldan refugees? And as an apostate, risking your neck in the most Templar-infested Void of a city in Thedas? There had to be a catch to it somewhere. But then I stepped through that door with the lantern, and I saw you working your magic right out in the open to save that child. And when you were finished you lifted your head, and I got one good look at your eyes and knew in an instant that you were real — because you looked so damn _tired_." This time, you're the one who laughs. It's a happy memory.

"Well, there _was_ a bit of a hidden catch," Anders points out.

"You mean because you're possessed? By a spirit of virtue! That first time I saw him — saw _you_ — all lit up and working miracles that not even a mage should be able to make happen..." You trail off, struggling for words. In truth, it was like finding religion, but you've been avoiding saying _that_ to him for years, because you know it would just scare him.  "Your voice changed. Something in it called to something in me, to the anger I'd always been told was wrong. You told me it was right. If it's possible to fall in love at first sight twice over... well. I did."

Anders takes a while to respond. It occurs to you that your flirting just veered into some deeply unpleasant territory for him, even if you did mostly talk around the details of what occurred in the Chantry that night. You still can't see his face, but he doesn't feel tense. Not that he always goes tense when he's melancholy — sometimes he just sort of flops about listlessly. Still, you don't think this is one of those times, either. You don't feel any change from a minute ago in the way that he's holding you.

In the silence, you can hear his breath and his heartbeat and the patter of the rain outside. It's nice.

"Thank you, Hawke," he says at last. "For everything."

"Well, that's enough talk, I think," you say. "I don't know about you, but I could stand to wear myself out a bit more before bedtime. And warm myself up, for that matter."

Anders kisses your hair again, and you can feel his smile in the kiss. Then he readjusts himself in your arms so you can look at each other eye to eye. Then he kisses your mouth.

While he's doing that, you roll him onto his back and get to work.


End file.
